Materia Medica by Kent

MURIATIC ACID

(mur-ac)

When treating a low form of continued fever with extreme prostration ARSENICUM, Muriatic acid and PHOS. ACID force themselves upon the mind. With ARSENICUM there has been the anxious restlessness; with PHOS. ACID there has been the mental prostration, and then the muscular weakness; with Muriatic acid the muscular weakness comes first, and there has been history of restlessness and the mind has been stronger than could be expected. With this great muscular exhaustion with jaw hanging down and the patient sliding down in bed and soon the involuntary stool and urine, this remedy is forced upon the mind. Paralytic weakness is what it must be called. Soon the tongue is paralyzed, as well as the sphincters of the bladder and rectum. It seems to be eminently fitted for the lowest forms of zymotic fever when the above symptoms are present. He finally becomes unconscious. There has been some restlessness, but nothing like ARSENICUM and RHUSTOX. He refuses to talk because it frets him to do so. PHOS. ACID is slow answering questions because of exhaustion of mind which makes him unable to think.

The vertigo comes on moving eyes, and on lying on the RIGHTSIDE. This vertigo is sometimes associated with liver disease. A stout, full-blooded jaundiced man about forty had suffered much from pain in the liver, with great soreness, was comfortable only when lying on left side; when he turned on his back or right side an anxious vertigo would come at once and he would break out in copious sweat, and be forced back to the left side. Muriatic acid made a complete cure of this liver trouble, which had been pronounced serious.

The headache is aggravated moving the eyes and rising up in bed, ameliorated by walking about slowly. Occipital headache with dim vision, aggravated by effort to see. Heaviness in occiput. Numbness in forehead. Soreness in occiput. Feeling as if hair were standing on end. Heat in top of head.

Perpendicular half sight. The eye symptoms ameliorated in the dark. Stitching pain. Burning, extending left to right eye, ameliorated washing. Itching in the eyes.

Hardness of hearing; loud crackling sounds during the night. The sound of voices unbearable. Buzzing in the ears.

The nose is stopped. NOSEBLEED in whooping cough, in zymotic fevers, in diphtheria and scarlet fever. Dark putrid blood from nose.

Great thirst. Thirst during chill and thirstless during the fever. Aversion to meat. Craves stimulants. Eructation bitter and putrid. Spasmodic action of oesophagus. Vomiting sour. Involuntary swallowing. Emptiness in stomach, not ameliorated by eating. Empty sensation in stomach and abdomen without desire for food. Emptiness in stomach from 10 A. M. till evening. Emptiness in abdomen in the morning after the usual normal stool. Indigestion; faintness; constipation; confusion; sleepiness after eating.

Pressing in the liver. Soreness, and enlarged liver. Fulness and rumbling in abdomen.

The urine flows in a feeble stream. Must wait a long time for urine to start; must press so that anus protrudes. This is in keeping with the general paralytic muscular weakness in the body. Involuntary flow of urine and stool in low fevers. Burning and cutting in the urethra while urinating, tenesmus follows.

Impotency; desire weak. Bloody, watery discharge from the urethra. Scrotum bluish. Itching of the scrotum not ameliorated by scratching. Margin of prepuce sore.

Pressing in genitals as if menses would appear. Menses too early and profuse. Ulcers on genitalia with putrid discharges. Cannot bear least touch, not even of sheet on genitals. LEUCORRHOEA with backache. Puerperal fever with extreme prostration, dropped jaw, sliding down in bed, suppressed lochia. Stool and urine putrid and involuntary.

Short breath with rattling after drinking. Breathing seems to come from stomach. Oppression of chest.

Pulse slow and weak, intermits every third beat.

Pressing pain in back. Pressing, drawing, tired feeling in small of back. Burning in spine.

Heaviness of arms. Numbness and coldness of fingers at night. Lower limbs dusky. Putrid ulcers on legs, with burning margins. Swelling of right tendo Achillis. Feet cold and blue. Burning of palms and soles. Swelling and burning of tips of toes. Tearing in limbs, ameliorated by motion. Pain in the limbs, during intermittent fever.

Evening fever with chill with or without sweat. Chill mingled with fever. The image of this remedy is found in typhoid and yellow fever. Perspiration during first sleep, Symptoms worse when perspiring.